Why Stress Makes It Harder to Control Emotions

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Experiencing mild stress in everyday life may interfere with
people's ability to use strategies to control their emotions, a
new study suggests.

The findings suggest that certain therapies that teach people how
to better regulate their emotions — such as those used to treat
social
anxiety and other psychiatric conditions — may not work well
during stressful situations, the researchers say.

"We have long suspected that stress can impair our ability to
control our emotions, but this is the first study to document how
even mild stress can undercut therapies designed to keep our
emotions in check," said study researcher Elizabeth Phelps, a
neuroscience professor at New York University. "In other words,
what you learn in the clinic may not be as relevant in the real
world when you're stressed." [ 7 Ways
to Reduce Job Stress ]

Stress and emotional control

People commonly use their thoughts to change their emotions — for
instance, when they think about a glass being half full instead
of half empty, Phelps said.

Such techniques, called cognitive
emotion regulation, can be taught to people in therapy. For
instance, a person who develops anxiety in social situations
might be asked to change the way they think about parties so that
they see them in a different light and have a different emotional
response to them, Phelps said.

In the new study, 78 participants viewed pictures of snakes and
spiders. Some pictures were paired with an electric shock, and
participants eventually developed a fear of these pictures. (They
reported more intense feelings of fear when viewing the pictures,
and a skin conductance tested showed they were more physiological
aroused, compared with when they viewed images not paired with a
shock.)

Next, the participants were taught therapeutic strategies, like
those used in clinics, to reduce the fear induced by these
pictures.

The next day, participants were randomly assigned to either place
their hands in icy water for three minutes — a technique used in
experiments to induce mild stress — or to place their hands in
warm water.

Those who placed their hands in warm water showed a reduced
fear response when they viewed the pictures of snakes and
spiders, indicating that the participants were able to use the
techniques they'd learned the previous day to control their
emotions.

However, those who placed their hands in icy water showed no
reduction in fear compared to the previous day.

Effect on the brain

Researchers know that it takes effort to think about situations
differently, and that learning to regulate emotions relies on a
brain area called the prefrontal cortex, Phelps said. However,
the prefrontal cortex is highly sensitive to stress, Phelps said.
This may explain why such cognitive-regulation strategies may not
work when the person is under stress.

However, there may be a way to overcome this problem. When
cognitive-regulation strategies are practiced so much that they
become second nature, they require less usage of the prefrontal
cortex, Phelps said.

In other words, the more these strategies are practiced, the
easier it will be used them when you're stressed, Phelps said.

The study is published this week in the journal Proceedings of
the National Academy of Sciences.